There were violent clashes, scuffles and brawls in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong last night as police deployed pepper spray and batons against pro-democracy protesters. Police say 9000 demonstrators were present and 26 people were arrested.

Hundreds of police officers, many in riot gear, swooped into Hong Kong's Mong Kok Occupy encampment in the early hours of this morning. Police and street cleaners removed barricades and tents, leaving pro-democracy protesters restricted a smaller area of Nathan Rd in Kowloon, occupying the southbound side only.

'Umbrella Movement' activists in Hong Kong clashed with riot police on Tuesday evening in an attempt to expand an area near the city's government headquarters currently being occupied by pro-democracy demonstrators.

In the run-up to Hong Kong's occupation protests, the initiators of the movement were called "radicals" and "extremists" and their actions dubbed "terrorism". Yet the young people peacefully demonstrating for universal suffrage across the city have won hearts and minds across the world in what amounts to a meticulous reading of peaceful dissent. By putting the "civil" in "civil disobedience", these young protesters have already won an important moral victory, no matter what happens next.

It is unlikely that these demonstrations seen today in Hong Kong will bring about significant change. Nevertheless, whether you are a democracy advocating global citizen, a government looking at how best to peacefully manage demonstrations, or just someone interested in international politics and what life in a future, more developed, China might look like, today's protests are a significant event worth watching closely.

Seven years ago China promised 2017 elections by universal suffrage for Hong Kong. In a referendum this summer hundreds of thousands of voters demanded open nomination of candidates. Yet Beijing in August said only candidates approved by a selection committee would be allowed to stand.

The fight goes beyond the call for a full democracy. It is the protection of the very basic rights of a population, under threat of a state that finds the idea of human rights laughable. And to those who don't realise what that has meant yet, remember... you only know what you've got, when it's gone.

Karl Marx once famously said: 'History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.' I wonder if China's second Tiananmen moment would be a tragedy, too. Because I do believe that what's happening in Hong Kong at the moment bears all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy.